Dunston Falls Read online

  “Last year,” Peck said. “How soon can you send somebody? Over.”

  “Sheriff, give me a day to get back to you,” Goodwin said. “I’ll have to make some calls. Over.”

  “No more than a day,” Peck said. “I’ve got a situation here. Over.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Out.”

  Peck set the transmitter on the desk and looked at Kranston. “He’ll see what he can do.”

  Kranston returned to Peck’s desk, picked up his drink and finished it off in two large gulps. “I’m going home, Dave. I suggest you do the same and get some sleep. You won’t be of any use to the state boys if you’re a basket case.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Peck insisted. “I’m getting used to the cot.”

  “Suit yourself.” Kranston walked to the door, and then paused as if he suddenly remembered something. “I almost forgot. Father Regan is preparing a memorial service for this Sunday. I thought it would be the appropriate time to make an announcement.”

  Peck stared at Kranston for several seconds. “Be prepared to answer the question why it took the second murder to announce the first.”

  Kranston gave a slight nod of his head to acknowledge he understood, turned and left the office.

  Peck sat at his desk and wrote reports for several hours after Kranston left. Experience taught him that no detail was too small or insignificant to overlook or ignore. Most cases come to successful conclusion by a second and third look at a detail detectives dismissed the first time. Once that missed detail became obvious, the detective usually beat himself up for not catching it sooner. Some day, police work would be a more advanced, highly technical science, but for now, it was keen eyes, instinct, experience and dedication. He hoped science and forensic labs didn’t replace those invaluable qualities.

  Peck fueled the fire, heated the coffee, and continued to write. Especially in murder cases, the twenty-four hour period before and after the crime are the most important. Once a scene grows cold, the less of a chance there is in solving the crime. In this instance, both murders were outside the window of solvability. Even the FBI crime lab would have a difficult time analyzing clues and finding a suspect.

  Peck was reluctant to admit it, but that meant a third murder would have to occur in order to obtain enough fresh evidence to solve the first two. That was a homicide detective’s nightmare, waiting out a fresh crime scene to solve a previous murder.

  To the detective, a fresh crime scene meant new clues and a chance to close a case. To the victim, it meant they were dead.

  It was as simple and as complicated as that.

  Peck set his pen aside and gently rubbed a spot between his eyes just above his nose. He could not describe the feeling as pain, but pressure as if the area had suddenly swollen. As he sat there and rubbed, Peck’s attention turned to the open door on the woodstove. Red-hot flames danced as the logs crackled. He could not explain why, but the flames appeared nearly hypnotic in their rhythm.

  Peck placed both hands on the desk as he continued to stare at the fire. A bead of sweat rolled down his face to his mouth. It tasted of salt. He could feel his heart beating inside his chest and a vein swell on the side of his neck.

  Suddenly, Peck was somewhere else, as if he mind was no longer connected to him and left the room. It was impossible, he knew, but he felt as if his consciousness transported him to a place outside of his body and he was beside himself. He could see the flames of an out of control fire raging as if he were standing right before it. There were screams all around him, cries of pain ringing in his ears.

  Peck jumped to his feet, but the hallucination stayed with him.

  A tiny hand, a child’s hand reached out for him.

  Peck felt himself raise his right hand to reach for the child.

  On contact with the child’s hand, there was a sudden, thunderous explosion and the vision vanished like a puff of smoke. Drained, Peck fell backwards into his chair.

  Sweat ran down his face as Peck tried to gather his thoughts and calm himself. He opened the desk drawer, removed the bottle of scotch and took a major league swallow. Setting the bottle aside, Peck sat and stared at his fingers. He wanted to get up and return to the cot, but his legs felt like lead. He lit a cigarette and felt the muscles in his legs slowly relax. Finally, when he could stand without getting dizzy, he walked to the cot and drifted off to sleep almost instantaneously.

  Peck joined McCoy for breakfast at Deb’s diner. News of Deb’s death was unknown to her staff so the mood in the diner was cheerful, more so since the storm broke and the sky began to clear. Conversation was optimistic, almost festive. It was amazing how people came together in a time of emergency and could seemingly almost enjoy that emergency, then take pride that they survived it. Big city and small town people shared that quality across the country, Peck observed, remembering the nuclear bomb scares of the earlier fifties generation.

  After they settled in at a table, Peck opened up to McCoy.

  McCoy ate a spoon of oatmeal as he listened to Peck describe his nightmarish hallucination of the previous night. If McCoy was surprised at Peck’s descriptive recant, his face showed no emotion.

  “I can’t really describe it, Tom,” Peck said. “It was as if I was having a dream and was wide awake at the same time.”

  “They did a study after the war,” McCoy said.

  “Which war, one or two?”

  “Both, actually, but mostly from forty six to forty nine,” McCoy said. “The study was on combat stress. They called it combat fatigue, mostly because it sounded better.”

  “I’ve been out of the Army thirteen years,” Peck said.

  “That doesn’t matter. You were how old when you were drafted?”

  “Thirty seven and I volunteered.”

  McCoy spooned some more oatmeal into his mouth and thought for a moment. “The war was hard enough on the young men, a guy your age at the time, it must have been hell.”

  “It was hell on everybody,” Peck said. “But, I’m not getting this. If combat stress was behind this… hallucination, why now? The war has been over more than a decade.”

  “I’m not a shrink, Dave. I can only guess.”

  “Guess.”

  McCoy nodded. “Subjugation would be my first inclination.”

  “Come on, Tom, what the hell is that?”

  “Long term repression.”

  “Repression? You think I’ve been sitting on this for a decade and a half?”

  “It’s possible,” McCoy shrugged. “You came out of the war and went right back to work. In many ways, being a cop is like being a soldier. It is a high stress job. There is no time or room for mistakes and certainly no time to reflect on the past. However, now you are retired and living in the middle of nowhere. All of a sudden, there are two very gruesome murders to contend with sandwiched between a crippling storm and the past catches up with you. Your mind starts to fatigue and you have post traumatic, combat stress syndrome.”

  “Which is what exactly?” Peck said.

  McCoy shrugged. “If I knew that, I’d be lecturing at the Surgeon General. Look, Army hospitals are full of men who suffered breakdowns from combat stress. They stare into space and see Germans under the bed and in the closets. They just don’t know enough at this time to fix these poor bastards.”

  “Three times, I’ve dreamed of or hallucinated about fire,” Peck said. “That has nothing to do with my combat experience, so I’m not making the connection.”

  “You aren’t, but your subconscious mind is,” McCoy said. “The man who dreams about falling or flying is actually dreaming about freedom, that kind of thing.”

  “What does fire represent?”

  McCoy shrugged his shoulders. “That I don’t know. I am not a psychiatrist. I will give the information to a doctor I know at Maine Med when I talk to him. I’m sure, when all is said and done that you’re fine.”

  Bender entered the diner and spotted Peck and McCoy and approached their table.


  “There’s a state police cruiser pulling up,” Bender said.

  Peck stood up from the booth. “About time.”

  Peck and Bender approached the state police car just as a tall; ramrod straight man of about fifty exited and stood on the curb. The man wore a dark suit and overcoat. He had the look of military about him, like a retired officer.

  I’m Sheriff David Peck, this is my deputy Jay Bender,” Peck said.

  “Lieutenant William Reese.”

  Reese and Peck shook hands and Peck noted that Reese had a solid and firm grip.

  “Sorry about the delay, this storm,” Reese said. “You have a place where we can talk?”

  “The office,” Peck said.

  Peck and Bender took Reese to their office where a fire crackled in the woodstove and fresh coffee rested in a pot on top of it. Reese tossed his coat on a coat hook and looked around. “Cozy,” he said.

  “Coffee, Lieutenant?” Bender said, handing Reese a mug.

  Reese sipped coffee from the chair opposite Peck’s desk. “It’s most unusual to have a double homicide in…...”

  “Not a double homicide,” Peck corrected Reese. “Two homicides committed days apart in all likelihood by the same man.”

  Reese nodded. “Who are the victims?”

  “Two white females in their mid to late forties.”

  “Is there any relationship between the two?”

  Peck shrugged. “They both live in this town.”

  “And they’re both dead,” Bender added.

  Peck and Reese looked at Bender. “I saw in an episode of Perry Mason once, the only clue they had to go one was that all the victims were dead. I forget how it ended.”

  “That may not be as far fetched as you think,” Reese said. “And I think I saw that episode.”

  Peck lit a cigarette, looking at Reese. “Other than both victims are dead, I have no leads, no clues and no suspects at this point. I have one murder weapon, which is a bread knife from the kitchen of the first victim. The second knife was probably tossed in the woods and won’t be found until spring, if at all. This is a town in the middle of nowhere and cut off from the rest of the state until the roads are cleared, power is restored and phones are back on line. Where would you like to start?”

  “Show me the victims?” Reese said. “That’s usually a good place.”

  Peck and McCoy stood in the background while Reese inspected the body of Doris White, who was prone on a slab in the tiny, hospital morgue. Wearing rubber gloves, Reese inspected the stab wounds, red marks on her neck and rope burns on the wrists. He took his time and when he touched the body, he was gently, as if touching a baby.

  “Had rigor set in when you found the body?” Reese said.

  “Yes, by about twelve hours,” McCoy said.

  “The broken bones in the arms, legs and rib cage, they were caused by the tree?”

  McCoy nodded. “She was dead a good eight hours before the tree came down.”

  “The second victim,” Reese said.

  McCoy moved forward to close the slab containing Doris White and pull out the one with Deb Robertson.

  Reese moved up and down the body of Deb Robertson, touching her neck and wrists. “You check for rape?”

  “Yes,” McCoy said.

  Peck turned away as Reese opened Deb’s legs for a closer examination. “And what did you find?”

  “There are definite signs of forced entry,” McCoy said. “Irritation and swelling of the vaginal walls and membrane. Some minor bleeding.”

  “Rigor?”

  “Not when the body was found.”

  “Time of death?”

  “Between eleven and eleven thirty.”

  Reese looked at Peck. “What time did you discover the body?”

  “About twelve twenty,” Peck said.

  “You just missed him then.”

  “Yes.”

  “Too bad,” Reese said, shaking his head. It would have made things easy.”

  “Yes.”

  Reese removed his gloves and tossed them into a trashcan. “Is there a place we can talk?”

  Reese sat at the table in the hospital lounge and sipped coffee as he looked at Peck.

  Peck and McCoy sat at the table opposite Reese.

  Reese said, “What are your thoughts, sheriff?”

  Peck lit a cigarette and took a sip of coffee before answering. “He’s fueled by rage and very powerful. The markings on the necks of both women are deep and the stab wounds go clear to the handle of the knife. He even cut bone, not easy to do.”

  Reese nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Tying the women to the bed was for pleasure, not necessity. He is easily strong enough to overpower both women if his goal was just rape and murder. There’s something else going on.”

  McCoy stared at Peck, as did Reese. “You’ve worked homicide before?” Reese said.

  “Baltimore. What’s your take?”

  Reese took a sip of coffee and said, “Without the benefit of seeing the crime scenes, I would guess that both women were selected at random by a man who didn’t care who they were or what they looked like. To him they were just there.”

  “I’m just a country doctor,” McCoy said. “So I’m a bit lost and a lot curious as to how you derived that.”

  Reese looked at Peck. “Care to enlighten the doctor, sheriff?”

  “One woman was beautiful, one was not,” Peck said. “Looks didn’t matter to him, only results.”

  McCoy thought for a moment. “The results being the rape or the murder?”

  “Probably neither,” Peck said. “In most cases like these, the killer has some inadequate feelings that need satisfying and uses his crimes to fulfill them.”

  “Like mommy didn’t give him enough attention?” McCoy said. “That kind of thing.”

  “Possibly. Nobody knows for sure except the killer himself.”

  Reese looked at Peck. “We still have some daylight, sheriff, feel like taking a ride?”

  FOUR

  Reese and Peck stood outside the trailer home of Doris White. Reese circled her old pickup, inspecting it and then walked completely around the house with Peck following him. Reese carried a flip open, notebook and he used a pencil to make notations. They stopped at the remains of the front door where Reese quickly scanned the debris and rubble.

  “No noticeable tire marks or footprints?” Reese said. “The snow and ice around the house are pretty much undisturbed except for the tree. You didn’t see anything previously?”

  “No, but whatever footprints or evidence might be here is under three inches of ice.”

  “Well, we can’t exactly wait for spring.” Reese entered the trailer, followed by Peck.

  “We’ll be fortunate to get anything from this mess, but I’ll mark it for the forensic team,” Reese said. He entered the bedroom, followed by Peck. “It’s almost impossible to determine if there was a struggle.”

  “I don’t think so,” Peck said.

  “Reason.”

  “Her pajamas. There wasn’t a mark on them. Not a thread out of place. It was as if she removed them willingly.”

  “Which she may have under threat of harm,” Reese said. “You’ve tagged them for evidence.”

  “Yes.”

  Reese moved to the bedroom window and peered out through the broken glass.

  Peck looked at his watch. “There’s enough daylight if you want to see the second site.”

  Reese nodded and they stepped outside the trailer.

  Reese scraped ice off the windows of Deb Robertson’s truck with a pocketknife and looked through the window at the keys, which still dangled in the ignition. “The engine was running when you arrived, you said?” Reese said, noting the ignition key was still in the start position.

  “Stalled, but on,” Peck said.

  “Did she start the truck herself?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Reese turned to look at the house. “For a couple of
reasons. She came down herself and the killer was hiding say in the woods nearby. He could have slipped into the house unseen. She would have walked into a trap. The other thing is if someone started the truck for her that someone could be our man. In any event, the truck and keys will be dusted for prints.”

  Reese removed a handkerchief from a pocket, forced open the truck door and confiscated the keys. Locking the door, he closed it.

  Peck started walking toward the house and Reese followed. “But, you already thought of all that, didn’t you?” Reese said.

  “It occurred to me,” Peck said.

  They climbed the stairs and Peck used a key to unlock the door.

  “What else has occurred to you?” Reese said as they stepped inside.

  Peck drew his flashlight and clicked it on. Even in daylight, the house was dark and cold. “You tell me,” Peck said.

  They walked the house, room to room. Reese made notes along the way in his small notebook, using a pencil, which he continuously moistened with his tongue. Peck stayed in the background and did his best to remove his personal feelings and keep them from interfering with his instincts as a detective.

  In the master bedroom, Reese paused and turned to Peck. “The killer wasn’t a stranger. She let him in and went to the bedroom for something. That’s when he surprised her. Maybe from behind. My team will be able to determine if she was choked into unconsciousness. At any rate, all the action took place in here.”

  “Because the downstairs is undisturbed,” Peck said. “All the mess is up here.”

  Reese nodded as he jotted a note on his pad.

  Peck said, “The thing of it is, in a town this small who is a stranger? Even if you don’t know somebody’s name, you’re sure to recognize a face. Moreover, Deb ran the only diner. She must have seen and known just about everybody in town and half the paper mill. If someone were to come to her door for help, she would almost certainly let them in.”

  Reese snapped his pad shut and tucked it into a pocket. “My men will do a complete sweep of the house interior, exterior and her truck. Prints, hair, blood typing, the works. We might get lucky and find a set of prints that have no business being here.”